


Congeal and Converge

by whatsanapocalae



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Devil Trigger (Devil May Cry), Hurt/Comfort, No Ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:35:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22430425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsanapocalae/pseuds/whatsanapocalae
Summary: V is crashing fast and Nero has only one idea on how to save him, give him his own devil trigger.I am about half way through the game so I'm certain none of this would ever happen in game but the idea wouldn't leave me alone.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 39





	Congeal and Converge

Hell was expansive and it all looked the same, or at least this part did, twisting Nero around, making him walk in circles. Just a waste of time, just holding people back, that’s all he was good for. Dante had even said it, before they split up again, pretty much the first thing Dante even said to him after coming back from the dead. It had been a whole month, he’d changed so much, he was so much stronger, but still, he wasn’t good enough. 

He was by yet another cliff, yet another route that looked the same as the others, and he was sure that if he went down it he would follow a similar path which would then lead him slowly upwards and around until he was back here. He couldn’t stand the concept. He was tired of wasting time. 

There was a panting sound, the flapping of wings, too long of strokes for a Hellbat, the voice too human for a minor demon. It was coming from beneath the edge of the cliff. 

Nero drew his sword and revved it. If something was coming, he would deal with it, and everything here seemed to crave violence. 

The demon that came up over the side was one that he knew though he’d never seen Griffon so tired. He was flapping heavily and lopsided and it took him a while to get high enough over the edge of the cliff for Nero to see why. 

In one talon was V’s hand, limp and pale. 

He rushed to the side to help but by then Griffon finally crested and dropped V unceremoniously to the deep gray dirt, before he fell to the side, too exhausted to even land properly. V didn’t move from where he lay, while Griffon lay on his side, panting, beak pulsing as he sucked in breath. 

Nero put a hand on V’s back, looking to the demon. “What happened?” he demanded, feeling for a pulse. V had been in bad shape when he’d last seen him, but that was only a few hours ago, if not days since this place was such a maze. 

Griffon shook his head, more of rolling it, while he stretched his wings and let them rest on the dusty ground. “So freaking heavy. I can go for a minute with him tops, but does he care? No way!”

Nero moved a hand to V’s shoulder. His skin was cracked and somewhat gray, pieces of him breaking off. He turned the strange man over far more careful than Griffon had been with him, but still, chunks broke off of him and turned to dust, spilling down the black leather of his vest. V’s face was slack, loose, and Nero realized that he’d never seen him with his expression lax. He’d never seen him sleep. He was always stressed. 

Nero slipped his fingers against V’s throat and checked and checked and finally found a pulse. It was weak but it was fast, the organ mistaking quantity for quality. 

“Thought the kid had a bit more time,” Griffon finally stated, walking over slowly, favoring the leg that hadn’t been gripping onto V, “I told him to rest. Told him we shouldn’t go after the sword of Sparda, but he didn’t listen to me. Burned himself out like a candle with a blowtorch.”

Nero ran a hand along V’s jaw, up against his cheek. No response. He was cold to the touch, his skin even taking on the texture of stone. 

“Is he going to be okay?”

Griffon looked him over, but it was hard to read the demon’s expression. “Shit, how am I supposed to know?”

“He didn’t tell you his plan at all?” 

“Just that we were going to beat Urizen! Which we did, kind of? Well, Dante did, but now there’s a lot more problems and I don’t know the plan after that.”

Nero wanted to ask, then, why Griffon and Shadow and Nightmare had decided to join V on his quest to kill the devil king and why they were willing to work with devil hunters. He didn’t ask though, not then. V was his most pressing issue. 

“What am I supposed to do?” Nero asked, seeing how V’s chest raised and fell, dust breaking free with the shuddering motion of it. V was so thin, painfully thin, and Nero had tried not to stare at his chest too much because it made him sick to think about what would cause a man to be so underweight and have the strength to keep going for so long. He was breathing though, that was a start. 

“Hell if I know,” Griffon sighed, unhelpful. He didn’t seem to know much, not even about V. “Do you know what V even is?” 

“Human,” Nero shrugged, unwrapping the thin leather cord from around V’s neck, folding it and placing it in his pocket. He’d give it back later but, for now, it was too tight for a man in need for air, “plus something else.”

“Maybe,” Griffon stated. “He won’t tell me what he is or where he came from but human’s don’t tend to come out full sized and with that much knowledge.”

Nero squinted, trying to understand. “What?” 

Griffon fluttered his wings, testing them. “He’s only a few days older than this job! Like, he’s a complete baby. So I don’t know how human he really is. Human medicines probably won’t do much.” 

Nero didn’t think before he reached over and twisted the devil arm, popping it from the bracket. He set it down beside him before wrapping his remaining arm under V’s back, hoisting him up and into Nero’s lap, like a pieta. 

“What about devil medicine?” he asked. 

“Wait, what are you thinking?” Griffon hopped over, like a crow, head tilting and looking at Nero for maybe the first time. 

“I’m thinking, if he’s not human and he’s working with us? Probably not an angel. He’s falling apart. I don’t know what to do.” He started to focus on his arm, on the space after where it ended. Slowly, blue energy fizzed and spiraled, making a continuation of his nervous system. “He needs to keep going. We don’t know what we have to do, he does. If I can give him a bit of energy, if I can buy him some time...”

He drew out his energy, as much of it as he could, making the arm more tangible, more real. It felt like his demon arm, but it wasn’t there, wasn’t real. For a moment, he felt like he’d never lost it, that this extension of himself was more than he’d ever been. 

And then he plunged his arm into V’s chest. 

He could feel V’s veins, the blood in them moving like sludge as they turned black and coagulated. He could feel how V’s heart stammered and raced, resetting and echoing, doing everything it could to move whatever blood was left around his body. He could feel V’s nerves burn and die, curl in on themselves. He must have been hurting for a long time. Nero knew he used a cane, but he didn’t know the cause of it. He wished he knew more about V. 

He wished he knew anything. 

“This better fucking work,” he murmured as he spread his fingers and spread and spread. He poured the devil trigger into V’s body, slowly at first, and then, all at once. 

The shock of the energy rippling through V’s body made him jolt, all of the tattoos on him turning into a fine powder, same as the pigment in his hair, and it shattered off of him, leaving his skin bare and his hair pure white. His back arched, his mouth open, and there would be a scream of agony as Nero forced himself inside of V’s body, but there was too much pain for sound to even escape him. His eyes were open, the dark brown of them replaced with the blue glow of Nero’s energy. 

When it was over they both collapsed, V sliding onto his side to sprawl over Nero’s chest. They were both panting, coated in sweat. Griffon was saying something but it seemed so far away now. Everything did, except for the hard, cold ground beneath Nero’s back and inexplicable weight of the man on top of him. 

He was breathing now, though, hard, and his ribs were jabbing Nero with each intake of breath. Nero shook himself free of his own despondence, his body feeling alien and foreign to him. His arm was heavy as he lifted it to stroke through V’s hair, watching with actual pain in his chest as V violently jerked away from him, eyes chaotic, afraid, and then finally settling on Nero. 

“What did you do to me?” V’s voice, usually so dark and deep, cracked. 

“Hopefully,’ Nero wheezed, “I bought you some time.”

V pulled off of him, spinning in a flourish away from Nero and towards the edge of the cliff. His cane was gone but that was fine, he didn’t seem to need it, not anymore. 

When he turned back to Nero his teeth were bared, his lips twisted in anger. His whit eyebrows were heavily seated with his rage. “You filled me with your devilish quarter! You took my fading body and filled it with your rightful power!”

Nero nodded, too exhausted for anything else. 

V put his hands on his knees, ignoring Griffon as he flew over and perched on his shoulder. He was falling apart in a different way now, the cracks in his skin closing up and the scars healing with a pale blue light, but his face was a contortion of different emotions, all battling one another, his eyes turning wet and dripping tears at being overwhelmed by it all. 

“Why? Why would you do that?” 

Nero rolled over and tried to push himself to his knees, he only got halfway before he grew dizzy and started to fall over again. He closed his eyes, trying to be rid of it. He felt so off balance. He felt so empty. He couldn’t feel his body anymore, like it was something that he was in but not in control of, everything based off of instinct instead of intent. It made him feel like a ghost wrapped around bone. 

“I didn’t want you to die.”

It was wheeze. He barely knew V and yet, he knew that that was true. 

Hot hands were on his elbows, holding him upright. He let himself fall forward, let his face rest against V’s chest. V didn’t move at first but then he released the bracketed arm to put his hand on the back of Nero’s head, the short hair nothing to protect him from the heat of V’s hand. His chest was hot too. He felt so alive and Nero felt like he was fading away. 

“You do not even know me,” V whispered. 

“I’d like to,” Nero admitted, raising his hand to clutch at the leather of V’s jacket. 

“No, you wouldn’t,” he could feel V shake his head. “I am not worth saving.” 

Nero grit his teeth. He was tired. He was so tired. He didn’t think he’d ever been this tired before. “Don’t say that right after I saved your ass.”

The fingers at the nape of his neck scratched lightly against his scalp. “All this while you have done your utmost to prove yourself. You have done everything to beat Urizen. You have stood up for yourself at every point. And now you are broken and weak, just a human, none of that grace you were born to hold within you remaining.” 

It was that that led Nero to realize what exactly he had done. He knew it, in a way, but now he new it all. He had given away his devil powers He had given away everything. He was in Hell and he was too weak to even wield his sword. All of his strength and power had come from his blood and now it was all gone, given to V. He was defenseless. 

He was scared. 

“I was hoping there was part of him left,” V murmured so Nero had to strain to hear it, “some small molecule that would recognize you. Something that still cared about you. I hoped it would give him pause.”

“Who?” Nero asked. 

V’s arm, wrapped around Nero’s waist to keep him steady, squeezed. “I worked so hard, curbed my desire for power. All of my memories are corroded by the lust for it. I do not want it, not now. Finally, I was free to live a life without it.”

Nero didn’t know what he was talking about. He wanted to understand. He wanted to care. He was just so tired and it felt so nice to be wrapped up against V, feeling that heat from outside of himself. 

“You gave it to me so willingly.” 

Nero could feel the summoning, a dark fluid shape coming into the world beside him. Shadow rubbed her head against his leg, mouth open to pant. He understood her purpose. He was to ride her. She was small but she was a demon, she would be more than strong enough to carry his human body. 

“V,” he said, not wanting to let go, not yet. “Who are you, really?”

V pulled away from him. The white hair looked good on him, made him look like family. Nero wouldn’t tell him that though. His face was shiny with drying tears. “I am no one to be trifled with. And no one to be remembered.”

He pulled away and held onto Nero’s hand, helping him up and onto Shadow’s back. 

“Come. Let us get you home.”


End file.
